Thursday, August 30, 2007

Prediction Comes True

I was cleaning out my closet yesterday, discarding skeletons and such, when I found a copy of a commentary I had written for the JT three years ago or so. One paragraph in particular bears repeating. Here it is:

"And the big question in Racine is, will Superintendent Hicks' education plan work? And the answer is, no. This is not to say that Dr. Hicks doesn't have great ideas, he may. The problem is that Hicks ideas are being implemented within a system, a monopoloy, that always underperforms. Dr. Hicks will eventually be replaced by a new educational guru, who will bring new, equally unattainable promises. And when this happens, we should not blame Dr. Hicks, we should blame ourselves for perpetuating a doomed education delivery system."

Do we really want to make this mistake again, or do we rally around Robin Vos for school vouchers?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Denis -

So, do you want to predict who will win the World Series?

If vouchers create competition for an olagapoly, then I'm all for it.

And while we're at it, let's change the way we elect school board members and create districtwide numbered seats.

Let's have candidates talk about issues and not just build name recognition.

Brenda said...

Numbered seats, great idea!

The board has been reluctant to do this in the past, perhaps now (in light of the whole "lack of oversight" findings) is the time to bring up this idea once again.

The Badgerland Conservative said...

The monopoly of gummint-run education is an abject failure. Any way to induce real competition would be welcome.

And yes, seats numbered by geographic district similar to the Common Council and County Board would also be an improvement. I think Milwaukee's school board is all districts with one at-large seat.

The Badgerland Conservative said...

By the way, if you like gummint-run skoolz, you'll love gummint-run health care.

Denis Navratil said...

cfc, I only make easy predictions. The World Series winner will not be from WI or Il.